Tour Booking System

A website is essential for any tour operator, giving you an important way to show off your brand and reach more customers. TBS can build a fully automated website generated entirely from the details entered directly into the system as you are building your tours. This allows you to create and maintain your online presence with no website design skills required.

In addition, you can add your own pages, allowing you to create an entire corporate website with no knowledge of HTML required. To aid the creation of these pages you can choose from a set of simple to use pre-defined templates to suit a variety of uses.

The styling of your website is handled by Distinctive Systems. We can create a theme to match an existing website or maybe a new theme based on your corporate branding. For mobile visitors TBS includes a touch-optimised smartphone friendly version of the website.

Tours on your website can be split into separate sections, allowing you to create categories such as shopping or home & gardens for your day trips and maybe 2-3 days, 4-7 days and 8 days plus for your extended tours. These categories are shown on the website menu and automatically appear as tours go live and disappear once they are in the past. The availability search allows your customers to find a tour with ease and the search uses these same categories to easily filter down to specific types of tours.

The website includes optional widgets on a rotating sidebar banner that can be used to promote specific tours on your website, with options to cross-sell specific tours while viewing another.

A tour page includes all the information you’ve entered into the back-office TBS system. This includes dedicated sections for a detailed overview, tour itinerary, other information, pick-up points, home pick-up area map, useful links and a tab that shows the dates the tour operates on.

For each tour on your website clients can request a call back. These are then shown as a popup alert in the back-office system allowing you to instantly contact your customers. To take this one step further it is also possible to add the online bookings module to your website, giving you a full e-commerce solution.

Allowing your clients to book a holiday or day excursion on your website is possible with the integrated online bookings module. 

The simple to use booking process captures the essential information including passenger names, seat selection, pick-up points along with accommodation and insurance where appropriate. Discounts can be applied and online payments are possible with the seamless Payment Express integration. A shopping cart is also available, allowing clients to make several bookings in a row and then pay for them all with a single transaction.

Clients can log into their account online, allowing them to view their bookings, make online balance payments, update their contact details and change their contact marketing preferences.

The online bookings module also provides a secure login for agents, allowing them to enter bookings directly into TBS. This eliminates the need for agents to phone in, thereby offering considerable savings in reservation staff costs. Agents are also able to view their existing bookings online and maintain their own authorised operators.

The back office booking process guides your reservation staff effortlessly through the steps of booking a holiday or day excursion. After client details have been entered the user moves through the tabs where they can enter passenger details, pick-up points, vehicle and seat preferences, accommodation, general items and insurance as appropriate to the tour being booked. Payment can then be taken and an invoice produced.

It is also possible to make a provisional booking which can be held as an option for a set number of days. A list of outstanding provisional bookings can be seen within the system and deleted if not confirmed.

The booking process can also handle the more advanced features of the system such as discount codes and loyalty points all of which can be enabled as appropriate.

The departure screen lists all the current tours within your system. Tours can be listed in a variety of ways, allowing you to easily find what you are after. Additional options include being able to filter to specific types of tours, set durations along with the ability to hide finalised and cancelled tours. Advanced search options include the ability to be able to filter to tours within a set distance from a client’s address and the ability to search for tours with specific accommodation occupancy requirements.

Once a tour has been selected you are presented with a set of information that is useful to your reservation staff, including pick-up points, seating plan layouts showing available seats, bookable items, tour descriptions and itineraries, internal tour notes and a list of existing bookings. You can also list clients on the waiting list for the selected departure.

From this screen it is possible to start the booking process or add clients to your waiting list if a tour is full.

The To-do List is a central grid within the system that displays reminders for items that need to be dealt with. This includes displaying a list of departures that require room lists to be sent to hotels.

A task can be anything that you wish to be reminded to do at a future date, maybe before a tour departs or possibly after the tour has finished. Pre-defined tasks can be stored in the system so they can be easily attached to your tours when they are created. Tasks can be assigned to specific staff and can be ticked off once complete. They can also include detailed notes that allow you to record what is to be done or what was.

The Waiting List feature can be used to store customer details in the system whenever a departure is full. You can then later look at the waiting list to see a list of possible matches and then contact the customer to ask if they still wish to go ahead.

When tours have new availability, maybe due to a cancellation or a new vehicle added the system will alert you to the fact that you have customers waiting. At this point you can easily call up the waiting list entry and contact the customer. Should the customer wish to go ahead you can easily start the booking process.

At a glance within the system you can view all your waiting list entries allowing you to make informed decisions as to whether you wish to add extra availability.

If you offer home pick-ups to your customers, the home pick-up features in the system will be of great benefit.

Firstly, you can define the home pick-up area that you operate in. This is created using the Google Maps integration within the system, allowing you to draw the area that you serve. Optionally you can define bands if you want to charge different prices to your customers depending on where the live.

During the booking process you can elect to be picked up from home, the system will automatically determine if the client is within the area defined and price as appropriate. For users outside of the defined home pick-up area you can optionally allow this for a price that is decided within the booking.

The Home Pick-up Operations feature within the system allows you to easily allocate passengers into different coaches or taxis. The Google Maps integration allows you to view all the home pick-ups on a given day on a map, with options to allocate visually. Each vehicle can then be timed using Google Maps, allowing you to create accurate timings that can be displayed on your final confirmations.

The operations facility within the system allows you to manage your feeder vehicles. A grid can be displayed showing all tours operating on a given day. You can easily filter the grid to specific tours, for example morning departures.

Passengers can be easily allocated to feeder vehicles based on your requirements. Times can be adjusted, and destinations specified. The operational reports allow you to print off pick-up summaries to hand over to your drivers.

For users with our Coach Manager product, feeder vehicles can be posted through to this system as charters, allowing the vehicles to be shown in your Coach Manager diary.

A client in TBS can be created in both the in-house reservations system or online whenever a customer registers for an account. Integration with Loqate which can be used to capture accurate addresses without the need for manual typing is possible. The system also includes de-duplication tools allowing you to keep on top of your client database.

The client database has extensive brochure management features that allows you to record brochure requests. This along with a user definable coding structure allows for powerful reporting.

You can also store emergency contact details, passenger information and usual pick-up points, along with records of discussions with customers. The system also has a loyalty program that allows customers to earn points that can be spent on future tours.

TBS has extensive features that help with your marketing responsibilities. Firstly, you can store the consent preferences as to whether you can contact each customer by post, e-mail, telephone or SMS. You can remove a client from use within the system if they choose to exercise their right to be forgotten. The system also includes batch down facilities to clear consent or delete clients that you’ve not had any contact from for a set number of years.

If you deal with agents, then it is possible to manage them within TBS. A comprehensive agent commission structure allows you to control exactly how much commission they can earn. Different types of agents can be handled within the system, with options for credit accounts. You can choose whether invoices are sent directly to clients or via the agent, controllable on a tour type basis.

Within the Sales Ledger in the system you can produce Agent Statements for each agent, detailing the financial breakdown of their account.

If enabled within TBS, agents can securely log into your website and make their own bookings. This eliminates the need for agents to phone in, thereby offering considerable savings in reservation staff costs. Agents are also able to view their existing bookings online and maintain their own authorised operators.

Invoices are generated automatically from the underlying booking details at the end of the booking process. They are posted directly to the built-in sales ledger.

Invoices can be sent to the client or agent either by email or post depending on their preference. You can choose to send invoices immediately at the end of the booking process or queue them for batch printing/e-mailing at the end of the day.

Payments can be received in the booking or via the sales ledger where a single payment can be allocated to multiple bookings in one go, typical where payments are received from credit agents.

There are extensive reporting facilities including agent statements, agent aged debt analysis, outstanding balances, advances payments, sales daybook and cash book. It is also possible to run cash and invoice nominal analysis reports.

TBS allows for a great deal of flexibility when it comes to accommodation on tours. Individual hotels can be created within the system, each with unlimited room types and occupancy configurations. As well as rooms you can also set up accommodation supplements that can be assigned to your tours, such as full or half-board requests.

Availability of your accommodation can be controlled on a tour by tour basis. Alternatively, in more advanced cases, you can specify availability against the accommodation itself, therefore allowing control across all the tours that may use the same hotels at the same time.

You can specify the number of days before departure that you must confirm your final numbers for each accommodation within the system. A rooming list for each accommodation on a departure can then be generated, with a reminder appearing on To-do List so they cannot be forgotten. Rooming lists reports can either be printed or e-mailed directly, with a variety of attachment formats possible depending on their requirements.

Within TBS it is easy to build a collection of different tours from a set of entirely user definable components. The components consist of an unlimited number of fares, accommodation types, general items, insurance options and pickup points. These are assembled as appropriate for each tour. The inclusion or exclusion of any one of the components is optional on each tour.

The flexible structure means anything from a simple day excursion to a complex multi-day, multi-centre tour can be created. TBS can handle not just coach-based tours, but also self-drive holidays and holidays by air. In the full version of the system it is also possible to create express service runs.

Once a tour has been created it is easy to add costs, prices and availability figures to each of the tour item components. These can vary on different departure dates. Tour vehicles with optional seating plans can be added, allowing clients to booking specific seats. For users of our Coach Manager charter and contract booking system, vehicles can also be posted through to this system as charters, allowing the vehicles to be shown in your Coach Manager diary.

The full TBS system also allows for premium seat supplements along with standard pick-up and home pick-up charges.

Within the system it is possible to create a loyalty program where clients can earn points when making bookings. Points can then be spent on future bookings.

The setup of the loyalty program allows for flexibility in how it runs. You can choose whether a set number of points is earned on each tour within your system or you can base it on the value of what has been booked. It is then up to you to decide how much a point is worth and this can vary if you wish to do a promotion from time to time. Points can be set to expire or not depending on your requirements.

Points can be spent in both the back-office system and by your clients online. Auto enrolment is possible for clients registering for an account online.

TBS has a comprehensive system for handling discount/voucher codes. Discount codes can be applied during the booking process, both in-house and online. Bookings totals and invoices are automatically updated appropriately.

When setting up a discount code there is a great deal of flexibility in how it works. You can choose between a fixed amount or a set percentage. In addition, you can elect to only discount selected items on the booking if required and set minimum and maximum booking values before a discount can be used. Discount codes can be restricted to specific tours or types of tours or apply to all tours, depending on your requirements. Start dates, expiry dates, maximum number of redemptions and web only options allow for complete control in how they operate.

Sales reports within the system can show discount values. On these reports you can choose to group and subtotal your figures per discount code. This allows you to keep track of how well discount promotions are working.

TBS has a comprehensive system for handling gift vouchers.  This feature includes both the ability to manage the initial purchase of a gift voucher along with a mechanism for managing redemptions. 

Depending on your requirements you can either issue your own pre-printed gift vouchers or let TBS generate them, with a choice of several built-in templates available.  Alternatively, you can import your own design.  It is possible for gift vouchers to be redeemed both within TBS by your staff and during the online booking process by your customers.  In the initial setup of gift vouchers, you can set minimum and maximum purchase values, an expiry date, post or e-mail delivery options along with terms and conditions.

There are a selection of reports in the system that allow you to see purchases, redemptions and expired gift vouchers.

TBS includes a comprehensive list of administrative reports within the system that allow you to analyse the success of your tours.

The tour performance analysis summarises the sales and costs for your tours, showing the income, amount received and amounts due.

The cost analysis report shows a comprehensive analysis of all your costs, with an item level break down. Within the system, actual costs can be specified once final costs have been settled, these are shown on the cost analysis with estimates shown when these are missing.

The sales analysis reports allow you to get sales figures for your tours within the system, with options to group and subtotal on by tour type and other options.

Other administrative reports include, insurance transactions, options and booking statistics.

Final confirmations or travel tickets can be sent out prior to departure, confirming all travel details with the client. These can either be printed or e-mailed depending on your requirements.

Rooming lists can be sent to hotels directly from within the system, these too can be e-mailed direct if desired.

Other operational reports include seating plans, passenger lists, standard pick-up and set-down requirements, home pick-up requirements, special needs requirements and luggage labels.